By Vision Reporters

UGANDA can provide 2,000 more troops needed to bring the African Union force in Somalia to its full strength if no other nation volunteers, the army spokesman has said.

“We are capable of providing the required force if other countries fail to do so,” said Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye.
On Sunday, explosions ripped through crowds watching the World Cup final in Kampala, killing 74 and wounding scores.

Somalia’s al-Qaeda-inspired al-Shabaab movement has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The elusive al-Shabab leader, Mohamed Abdi Godane, also known as Abu Zubayr, said in an audio message broadcast on several Mogadishu radio stations yesterday that the attacks were carried out by the Saleh Nabhan Brigade.

The unit was named after a Kenyan-born al-Qaeda operative, suspected in the 2002 anti-Israeli attacks in Mombasa and killed in a suspected US air raid last year.

Kulayigye said Uganda could provide more soldiers for the AU force, following a decision earlier this month by a regional body to bring AMISOM to its full strength of 8,100. In early 2007, Uganda became the first country to dispatch troops to AMISOM.

With fewer than 7,000 troops on the ground, AMISOM has enabled the tenuous survival of Somalia’s Western-backed President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, but failed to weaken the insurgents.
President Yoweri Museveni vowed Wednesday to “eliminate” the Somali masterminds behind the twin-bomb attacks.

“We can join to build up the strength of that force to 20,000 so that working with the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia we can eliminate the terrorists,” Museveni said on Wednesday.

Kulayigye said in order to deliver on a promise to deploy 2,000 more troops, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development should scrap a rule preventing bordering nations from contributing soldiers. Uganda and Sudan are the regional body’s only member states not to share a border with Somalia.

AFP